Goodies and baddies for children of all ages THE ARTS Cinema . .- I :.? I I . .. I . - I - i. . '; I . . . I The Star Wars films are not - 1ike the Grease Ils, the Halloive'en Ills and Rocky Its - sequels and spin-offs, but constitute a continuing serial. George Lucas, who remrains the guiding hand as producer and principal- wrhter, whoever the director may bt (this time it is Richard Marquand),.plans a cycle of nine tpisodes in all. 'Star Wars. The Ehpire Strikes. ,ack nd Return of fhe Jedi repr6s&t episodes 4. 5 and 6. .In the old days of,cdursc serials came out weeklWy; buft tJhse three parts were releas'ed respectively in 1977, 1980 anid 1983. At this 'rate, of three-year intervals, hot all of us will still be around to see hQW .things turn out in chaptet nitic. Even, the youngest patrons of the original Star Wars will be taking their own children to see a middle-aged Luke Skyw4lker and his rustingefobots. Lucas's declared intention had been to return .to the style. and naive pleasures of the weekly exploits of Flash Gordon and Captain Marvel; and true to the authentic method, the individual episodes tend to be reprises, with variations - rather than actual progressions of a story. Luke and his chums are still doing battle with, the evil usurper Emperor and his creature Darth Vader, and the donouemeint is. the inevitable frenzied battle ini space' This time the Emperor and Darth Vader are definitely conquered. The scrial is planned in three triptych cycles: for the others (again true to the conventions of the form) new villians will be found. In approach and style there is some, change for the worse, though it is unlikely to affect the preprograrnmed appeal of the series. Special effects, have more and more taken over from- the human interest. The credits for. technical work are now endless; and the effects become ever more marvellous in every department, whether the creation of space hardware, grotesque primeval mon- sters or cute and cuddly Disneyesque pets. The invented creatures are a lot Dragon monster Jabba in Return of the Jedi; he might have been invented by Tenniel for an X-rated Alice more enjoyable than the humans who are always strictly two-dimensional, and whose relationships are now' sketchier than ever-.There is certainly more fun to be hKd with the denizens of the demonic disco in Star 'Wars who uow"f6rm the`court of'a huge dragon mionster called Jabba. With -his enormous, scdly, toad-like head sitting gross, greedy and flatulent, meting: out death and torture,' 'obblikng up his smaller. subjects and toying lecherously wvith captive mnaidens, he m. might have' been invented by -Tenniel for. an X-rated Alice. The. film remains a cunninig and .prodigal synthesis. of every kind'of popular myth. There are vague memnorics of.classical legend in the * basic .story of a brother. wvho risks: falling in love with the sister whose ,identity he does not know, and who discovers. in the same moment that the man whom it is his destiny to kill is in faci his own father. The mystical sources of The Force, Darth Vader's atonement. and Luke's cries to his father in the extremities of torture have echoes of Christian lore. There are once again nods to the Hitlerian pageantry of Triumph of the Will Vader's funeral pyre looks even like a small homage to Gandhi. The conflicts intermittently take on the style of Western or of Sword-and- Sorcery. The bad people are in their appearance amalgams of all the things we hate: Naiis, traffic cops, Mao suits. The latest addition to the good people is a tribe *of teddy. bears who sometimes carry on like Robin Hood and his Merry Men and at others like comic cannibals from strip cartoons. 'Aimed with deadly. calculation at the child in all'of us, Reiurn of the Jedi estimates our mental age - no doubt , clu;ite accurately - at around six and a ha f. At. the moment of high euphoria for Briiish cinema,. poor Tony Scott exemplifies the casualties of the bad times (before Channel. Four) when even the most promising directors bad small chance of-exercising their craft. More than a .decade. ago Scott made an excellent and original low. budget film, financed by'the British Film Institute, called Loving Memorv. The years of waiting between then 'and Thle Hunger have been spent at the treadmill of commercials; and his new film goes to show the taint which too much of that can lay on talent and vision. Technically faultless, the film at every momnent has-the trashy chic -of an' extended commercial for cosrnctics or soft furnishings, though Tmore often it seems to be selling cigarettes: Not that the screenplav gives anv encouragemcnt to do better. Adapted firom a novel by Whitney Strieber which is clea'riv to be avoided. it is a fairly incoherent tale' of 'mysticism. magic-4nd horror. Catherine Deneuve is .a abeautifu - vamipire who has cnsured mille&nfiia of immortality by conwstantly appeasing-The Hunger for blood. Susan Sarandon is a doctor %viihl a~ more scientific interest iri .logevity and ' aging. David Bowie's .rather brief appearance as a lover- victim of Deneuve with a bad case of rapid aging provides the filrn's most consoling moments. The make-up men and<Bowie's clever mime,make quite a feat out of the aging,-and the <film ._almost rises to a touch of humour with the scene of Bowie growing several, hundred years older in a doctor's-waiting room. It is still very small compensation ior ail the other flashy silliness, and the effortful erotica of a nude lesbian- vampirc encounter between Deneuve :and Sarandon - both of whom are actresses far too attractive to have tbis wished upon them. The National Film Theatre's French year nioves on this monili to a complete retrospective of the 13 films comnpleted by ,Jacques Becker. Becker (1906-1960) cbnsistently made fiims that were and.reniain enjoyable. and mado his own: strohg contribution to the prestige .and popularity of. the French cine,ma in the. post-war decade. He almost became an actor he played in Jean Renoir's Boudu sazurle des eaLtxtI and King Vidor wanted -to take hini off to Hollywood and make a star ofhim. Instead Becker stayed on to be assistant to Renoir and Renoir's example undoubtedly helped shape his own. appreciatior of character, of milieu, of the interaction of groups. Even trifles like.a comedy vehicle of Fernandel. Ali Baba. have their own style: and films that look like trifles - Falbfalus. set in a. Parisian fashion house. or Rue de I! Estrapade - often intimate unsuspended depths. Rue de L l strapade was the third and least successful of the marital comedies by wvhich Becker is today best remem- bered. The NFT season is also a chance to expericnce again Becker's uniquely evocative. period- reconstructions. whether the belle epoque of Les .I r VC'nures de Arsi-ne Lupin. the. world of the,Apaches-and their women in C asque d'Or. the eve of the twenties in .lMoniparnasse 19 or Becker's own contemporary France in Rendezivous de Juilegi. -Not to be missed. above all. is Becker's -last film; Le Trou. the stoiy of an attempted prison break which, is a virtuoso exercise in suspense. created within unities of time and place. David Robinson : Goodies xand baddies 'for children of all ags Return-of the Jedi (U) Leicester Square Theatre; Odeon, Marble Arch ; . - Dominion The Hunger (18) ABC, Shaftesbury Avenue Jacques Becker season National Film Theatre-